Dr Christos Katrakazas is a Civil Engineer, PhD, and a Research Associate at the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He holds a Civil Engineering Diploma from NTUA majoring in Transportation Engineering (2013) and a Ph.D. in safety of autonomous vehicles from Loughborough University (2017). After finishing his doctoral studies, he worked for 8 months as a Research Associate at Loughborough University, and for two years at the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany.  He has more than 9 years of experience in several aspects of transport safety and engineering.

 

Specialisation areas

  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Transportation Safety
  • Crash prediction
  • Machine Learning and Data Science
  • Statistical and Econometric Methods

 

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Civil and Building Engineering (Oct 2013 – Jul 2017)

Transport Studies group, Loughborough University, United Kingdom, Thesis: Developing an advanced collision risk model for autonomous vehicles,

  • Diploma in Civil Engineering (Sep 2006 – Mar 2013)

National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Specialization: Transportation engineering, Thesis: “Investigating factors affecting helmet use among European motorcyclists

 

Teaching Experience

  • Teaching assistant in the M.Sc. courses “Advanced Road Safety Concepts”, “Applied Statistics in Transport”, “Statistical Learning and Data Analytics for Transportation Systems”, “Multimodal and intermodal freight transport”, “Transport Economics” at the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering of the Technical University of Munich (Feb 2018 – Sep 2019)
  • Teaching assistant in the M.Sc. course “Quantitative Analysis in Transport” at the School of Architecture, Civil and Building Engineering Loughborough University, UK (Oct 2015 – Jul 2017)
  • Supervising assistant in 3 M.Sc. Theses at the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering of the Technical University of Munich (2018-2019)
  • Supervising assistant in 6 Diploma Theses in the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (2019- ongoing)

 

Publications

At the present time (July 2022) thirty eight  (38) scientific papers have been published: 18 papers in scientific journals and 17 papers in scientific conference proceedings, 1 book chapter and 2 academic theses.

Publications in scientific journals with referees

  1. Thodoris Garefalakis.; Christos Katrakazas; George Yannis (2022) Data-Driven Estimation of a Driving Safety Tolerance Zone Using Imbalanced Machine Learning.Sensors, 22, 5309.
  2. Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Foteini Orfanou, Dimosthenis Pavlou, Maria Oikonomou, George Yannis (2022), Impact of texting and web surfing on driving behavior and safety in rural roads, International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology
  3. Marianthi Kallidoni, Christos Katrakazas, George Yannis (2022). Modelling the relationship between covid-19 restrictive measures and mobility patterns across Europe using time-series analysis. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 22(2), 161–182.
  4. Fred Wegman & Christos Katrakazas (2021) Did the COVID-19 pandemic influence traffic fatalities in 2020? A presentation of first findings, IATSS Research, Volume 45, Issue 4, Pages 469-484
  5. Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Fotini Kehagia, George Yannis (2021), Analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on collisions, fatalities and injuries using time series forecasting: The case of Greece, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 162, 2021
  6. Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Marios Sekadakis, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Armira Kontaxi, George Yannis (2021) Identifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Driving Behavior using naturalistic driving data and time series forecasting, Journal of Safety Research
  7. Roja Ezzati Amini, Christos Katrakazas, Andreas Riener & Constantinos Antoniou (2021) Interaction of automated driving systems with pedestrians: challenges, current solutions, and recommendations for eHMIs, Transport Reviews (in press)
  8. Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas, George Yannis, Ashleigh Filtness, Rachel Talbot, Graham Hancox, Fran Pilkington-Cheney, Kris Brijs, Veerle Ross, Hélène Dirix, An Neven, Roeland Paul, Tom Brijs, Petros Fortsakis, Eleni Konstantina Frantzola, Rodrigo Taveira (2021), Post-trip safety interventions: State-of-the-art, challenges, and practical implications, Journal of Safety Research (in press)
  9. Christos Katrakazas, Athanasios Theofilatos, Md Ashraful Islam, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Loukas Dimitriou, Constantinos Antoniou (2021), Prediction of rear-end conflict frequency using multiple-location traffic parameters, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 152
  10. V. Mahajan, C. Katrakazas and C. Antoniou (2020), Crash Risk Estimation Due to Lane Changing: A Data-Driven Approach Using Naturalistic Data, in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
  11. Antoniou, C., Chaniotakis, E., Katrakazas, C., & Tirachini, A. (2020). Editorial: A better tomorrow: towards human-oriented, sustainable transportation systems. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 20(4), 354-361
  12. Christos Katrakazas, Constantinos Antoniou, George Yannis (2020). Identification of driving simulator sessions of depressed drivers: A comparison between aggregated and time-series classification. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 75, 16–25
  13. Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Marios Sekadakis, George Yannis (2020), A descriptive analysis of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on driving behavior and road safety, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives,Volume 7
  14. Vishal Mahajan, Christos Katrakazas, Constantinos Antoniou (2020). Prediction of Lane-Changing Maneuvers with Automatic Labeling and Deep Learning. Transportation Research Record.;2674(7):336-347
  15. Paweł Gora, Christos Katrakazas, Arkadiusz Drabicki, Faqhrul Islam, Piotr Ostaszewski (2020), Microscopic traffic simulation models for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) – state-of-the-art, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 170, Pages 474-481
  16. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen (2019), A new integrated collision risk assessment methodology for autonomous vehicles, In Accident Analysis and Prevention, Volume 127, Pages 61-79
  17. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen (2018), A Simulation Study of Predicting Real-Time Conflict-Prone Traffic Conditions, In IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Volume 19 (10), Pages 3196-3207
  18. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen, Lipika Deka (2015), Real-time motion planning methods for autonomous on-road driving: State-of-the-art and future research directions, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Volume 60, November 2015, Pages 416-442

Book Chapter publications (with peer/editorial review)

  1. Christos Katrakazas, Athanasios Theofilatos, George Papastefanatos, Jérôme Härri, Constantinos Antoniou (2020), Chapter Three – Cyber security and its impact on CAV safety: Overview, policy needs and challenges, Editor(s): Dimitris Milakis, Nikolas Thomopoulos, Bert van Wee, Advances in Transport Policy and Planning, Academic Press, Volume 5, Pages 73-94

Publications in scientific conference proceedings (full papers with review)

  1. Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas, Susanne Kaiser, Tom Brijs, George Yannis (2022), Real-Time Monitoring of Driver Distraction: State-of-the-art and Future Insights, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece.
  2. Fotini Bardi, Christos Katrakazas, George Yannis (2022), Factors contributing to safety-critical events in urban areas: A driving simulator study, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece.
  3. Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas, Amir Pooyan Afghari, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Christelle Al Haddad, Kui Yang, Constantinos Antoniou, Tom Brijs, George Yannis (2022), Modeling the concept of a Safety Tolerance Zone: State-of-the-art and proposed alternatives, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece.
  4. Akrivi Varela, Christos Katrakazas, George Yannis (2022), Identification of safety-critical events on rural roads using a driving simulator, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece.
  5. Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas, Ashleigh Filtness, Rachel Talbot, Graham Hancox, Chiara Gruden, Ariane Cuenen, Kris Brijs, Tom Brijs, George Yannis (2022), Methodology for the Evaluation of Safety Interventions, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece.
  6. Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis (2022), Identifying crucial factors of the impact of COVID-19 on driving behaviour using feature analysis on naturalistic driving data, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece
  7. Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Erika Santuccio, Peter Mörtl and George Yannis (2022), A review of risk factors associated with elderly, truck and office worker drivers for automated driving application, Proceedings of the 8th Road Safety and Simulation Conference, 8-10 June 2022, Athens, Greece
  8. Roja Ezzati Amini, Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas, Christelle Al Haddad, Bart De Vos, Ariane Cuenen, George Yannis, Tom Brijs, Constantinos Antoniou (2021) Risk Scenario Designs for driving simulator experiments, 7th International Conference on Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems (MT-ITS)
  9. Abdallah Abu-Aisha, Ralph Harfouche, Christos Katrakazas, Constantinos Antoniou (2021) A new methodology to infer travel behavior using floating car data (2021), 7th International Conference on Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems (MT-ITS)
  10. Md Ashraful Islam, Rafael Munoz Nieto, Kuan Yeh Chou, Xiaoyan Kang, Christos Katrakazas (2021), Multi-criterial assessment of road crashes for different modes and consequences for land-use in London, 7th International Conference on Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems (MT-ITS)
  11. Kaiser S., Katrakazas C., Aigner-Breuss E., Pilkington-Cheney F., Ziakopoulos A., Yannis G., Brijs T. (2020). State of the art on measuring driver state and technology-based risk prevention and mitigation: Findings from the i-DREAMS project. Proceedings of the 8th Transport Research Arena TRA 2020, April 27-30, 2020, Helsinki, Finland.
  12. Katrakazas, C., Antoniou, C., Sobrino Vazquez, N., Trochidis, I., Arampatzis, S. (2019) Big Data and Emerging Transportation Challenges: Findings from the NOESIS project, IEEE 6th International Conference on Models and Technologies for Intelligent Transportation Systems, Krakow, Poland.
  13. Christos Katrakazas, Constantinos Antoniou, George Yannis (2019) Time Series Classification Using Imbalanced Learning for Real-Time Safety Assessment, in: Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2019
  14. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen (2017) A Simulation Study of Predicting Conflict-prone Traffic Conditions in Real-time, in: Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2017
  15. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen (2017) A new methodology for collision risk assessment of autonomous vehicles, in: Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2017
  16. Christos Katrakazas, Mohammed Quddus, Wen-Hua Chen (2016) Real-time Classification of Aggregated Traffic Conditions using Relevance Vector Machines, in: Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2016
  17. Christos Katrakazas, George Yannis, Matthew Karlaftis (2013) Investigation of factors affecting helmet use among European motorcyclists, Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on Transport Research in Greece, Thessaloniki, October 2013

Theses

  1. Christos Katrakazas (2017) Developing an advanced collision risk model for autonomous vehicles, PhD Thesis, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
  2. Christos Katrakazas (2013) Investigation of factors affecting helmet use among European Motorcyclists, Diploma Thesis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

International Reports

Main author of ITF (2021), Road Safety Annual Report 2021: The Impact of Covid-19, OECD Publishing, Paris

Research projects

Participation in six (6) European H2020 research projects in the field of Transportation Planning and Engineering, Big Data and Automated vehicles – Bold indicate project management positions

“SAFETYCUBE: Safety Causation, Benefits and Efficiency” of the Horizons 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

“LEVITATE – Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles” of the Horizon 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

“NOESIS: Novel Decision Support tool for Evaluating Strategic Big Data investments in Transport and Intelligent Mobility Services” of the Horizons 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

“i-Dreams: Safety tolerance zone calculation and interventions for driver-vehicle-environment interactions under challenging conditions” of the Horizons 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

“HADRIAN”: Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration and Automation Allocation for European Mobility Need of the Horizons 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

“SHOW”: SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption of the Horizons 2020 framework programme on transport research of the European Commission.

 

Computer Skills and Software Knowledge

  • Operation Systems: MS Windows, Linux
  • Programming: Python, R-Studio, C++, Java, Matlab
  • General: MS Office, Total Commander
  • Design: Autocad 2D, Autocad Map 3D
  • Statistical Analysis & Data Mining: SPSS, R, STATA, WEKA
  • Transport modelling programs: PTV VISSIM, TransCad
  • Automotive: PCAN explorer (radar), u-center (GNSS), PointGrey FlyCap (Camera), MapInfo

Languages

  • Greek: Native Language
  • English: Proficient user – Certificate of Proficiency in English (Cambridge University). Sufficiency of Teaching English.
  • German Good – B2 level, Goethe – Zertifikat B2 Deutsch.

Affiliations

  • Member of the Technical Chamber of Greece
  • Member of the Greek Society of Civil Engineers 
  • Member of the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE)

Contact

National Technical University of Athens,

School of Civil Engineering,

Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering

5, Iroon Polytechneiou str., GR-15773, Zografou, Athens

Phone: +30 210.7721265

E-mail: ckatrakazas@mail.ntua.gr